Emergency Room Visitors’ Tag.

Dear Journal,

Yesterday was just about my hair for sure. Braided from 8 am to 10 pm. I must admit, Ange is a wonderful hairdresser. She made me chicken and pasta, put on a captivating show called Criminal Minds for me, and used her personal hair products to make sure my hair turned out perfect.

And it did! I’m also completely hooked on Criminal Minds.

I spent most of today in a bonnet, half watching TV and working on my assignments: Typical lazy Sunday. I planned to ride my bike at dusk but, I overestimated the time again and realized it got dark faster than I could say, Jack.

5:47 pm.

Took a shower and got dressed in the biggest t-shirt I have ever seen and owned to go biking. My roommate had given it to me two weeks earlier. I rode up, down, and around the apartment building till 7:36 pm. I decided to take a break and warm my fingers when my roommate called to ask me if I could accompany her to the hospital. She had some tingling in her arm and the left side of her face. Her chest had been hurting for a while too. Very interesting way to end my usual chill Sunday night. So I said absolutely. I packed my laptop, a book, and a pen for protection in case I needed to defend myself in the parking lot. What? It’s not my fault people are crazy.

20 minutes later, we were in the hospital, and I had a pink Emergency Visitor tag glued to my gigantic t-shirt. I sat in the visitors’ waiting section while she waited in a different section to see a doctor. She was later moved to another room for more waiting while I played Mr. Ballen’s videos on YouTube. Somehow, I had left one of my AirPods at home.

About 40 minutes into my stay there, I started to hear conversations between the security guard on duty and this old man who had a Navy uniform hat and blue overalls on. Nothing argumentative by the way. He said the hospital was supposed to cover his Uber costs because it had been always like that since he was a veteran. He also continuously went off trail and told a million and one stories with every sentence. He spoke to every nurse and told them the same thing. The nurse in charge finally walked out after about an hour plus of this man making his requests and handed him a cab driver’s phone number.

At this point, I was fed up with the hospital staff. This was an old man with probably no money and in need of help. All they kept doing was avoiding doing something differently. So, I deleted my CashApp to relieve more phone storage and downloaded Uber. I walked up to him and asked for his address. He was thankful and said a lot as expected. But he finally gave it to me, and when I put in his address, his ride was about $10.89. $11! That was all he needed. All the hospital staff that he spoke to couldn’t do anything. I don’t think it’s possible to roll my eyes any farther than this without hurting something back there.

6 minutes later, we were outside the hospital, and he was spiraling about ERs haha. His ride finally arrived, and we said our goodbyes.

Two hours later, my roommate was out of the doctor’s office, walking towards me with test results that showed she was very stressed.

Back home and about to go to bed, I thought about the old blue man and cried: I would never get to see my father get that old. I thought about how he didn’t know in January 2021 that he’d be dead by September, exactly two weeks before my birthday. I thought about how it was going to be a long journey for my siblings and I to finally learn how to forgive him. I thought about how scarred my mother had become after spending 20 years with him.

Goodnight, dear Journal.